Pixel Art Style Affects Temporal Estimation in Visualized Situations

This study intends to discuss the potential effects of pixel art style on people's perception. In Experiment A, 166 participants were randomly assigned to 2 groups, observed the same dining situation in pixel and vector art style respectively. Results showed that art style did not have a big impact on emotions, however raised a hypothesis that people might tend to believe the situation is in a past era when observing the pixel version. To test that, in Experiment B using 6 different dining situations involving 189 participants, it is found that people in pixel group indeed tend to believe that the situations happen in an earlier period. The effects of pixel art style on imagination remains unclear. This study revealed the potential impact of pixel art style on people's temporal estimation. This phenomenon could be taken advantage of in game design and visual communication design.